


The Undying

by Angela



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2014-03-29
Packaged: 2018-01-13 20:09:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1239259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angela/pseuds/Angela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I was wondering,” Gimli had said at the beginning of it. “Isn't it about time you get started on that boat of yours?”</p><p> </p><p>It has been over one hundred years since the War of the Ring. Gimli and a dwarf girl named Mâglah help Legolas build his ship to sail into the west. While they are working, Legolas realizes that there are a lot of things that have been long unexpressed between him and his dearest friend, things that must be said and done before it is too late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_The sky looked larger from from the sea. There were stars that Legolas had never before met, sparking and shimmering in the north and the south, all the way down to where the sea lapped over them. He greeted them softly, too courteous to skip an introduction and yet too solemn to sing. The air was cooler, now there was no land in sight, and though Legolas was not chilled, he pulled his old cloak of Lórien more firmly around his shoulders. The wind that filled the sails also lifted Legolas's long hair, pulling at it and knotting it in its own chaotic fashion._

_The journey of a fading elf was long and often lonely. Legolas's own had been longer than most, and so lonely that he found he knew not what to do with the feeling that overwhelmed him._

_Legolas stood on the deck of his beautiful craft, watching the pale sliver of a waxing moon as it crept up from the eastern horizon. His fingers rubbed a steel cleat on the bow. As with all the details, the cleat was sturdy and well-made, but thanks to Gimli, it was also so much more. The lines were smooth and elegant, a piece of practical art. And on the gleaming surface of the steel – on all the steel fixings and bright-work, in fact – were carved tiny words in that language that he was forbidden to study, even after so long._

_He wondered what messages Gimli had hidden there, on his ship. Blessings for safe passage? For fair weather? Or something more personal, knowing that no one – not even Legolas himself – would ever decipher his secrets?_

 

“I was wondering,” Gimli had said at the beginning of it. “Isn't it about time you get started on that boat of yours?” He spoke casually, puffing at his pipe.

He seemed not to see the surprise that must have been plain on Legolas's face – decades of practice made him champion at ignoring everything he wished not to acknowledge between them – and continued, “If you want my help – and I'm sure you must, for what could a lone elf know of building aught? – we should start soon. I am not so spry as I once was, after all.”

Legolas was momentarily speechless. There had been no indication that the inevitable time was upon them, or even upon the horizon. The elf's sea-longing had waxed and waned no more than usual, and on that night it had been many months since he'd felt the draw of the West against him. In short, all was as it had been for years – nay, decades – before his friend uttered such a strange observation.

It was plain that Gimli was no longer a young dwarf. The hair on his head was streaked through with white, though his beard was as bright as ever before. And there were deepening lines around his eyes and mouth, certainly, but Legolas had attributed them to a life spent in smiles and laughter rather to age. Gimli was many things, but the elf could not think of him as old.

“So soon?” he asked.

Gimli chortled around his pipe. “I suppose I can hardly expect an elf to note it, but it has been more than a hundred years since you first heard seagulls and hungered to leave. Nearly a score more, in fact.”

Legolas was aware of the year. And it was true that elves were no longer there to speak to the trees of Middle Earth. He wasn't certain of the last time he'd encountered another of his kind in his travels – all of his kin was gone and Gimli and Aragorn were the only company he sought anymore. “I have no wish to leave,” he said simply, his tone suggesting the subject be dropped.

This refusal seemed to amuse the dwarf further. “Easy, my friend,” he said with a laugh. “I have no intention of banishing to you to the West. But a ship will be a large endeavor. Is it not better to start building before you have the need than to find yourself without a vessel when you are ready to sail?”

There were no arguments that would sway the pragmatism of a determined dwarf, Legolas knew. And Gimli was generally more determined than most. He shook his head, hiding a smile from his stubborn friend. “I cannot fault your logic, my friend,” he conceded. “But what does a dwarf know of building ships?”

“I know they must stay afloat,” Gimli barked.

“With that vast store of knowledge at my disposal, how can I refuse?” Legolas asked, unable to conceal another smile. 

Gimli seemed pleased to have it settled. “Tomorrow I will show you my plans for the metalwork, then,” he announced, filling his mug, “and you will have the loveliest boat ever to leave Middle Earth.”

***  
It was nearly three months later when they met in South Ithilien, near the delta of the Anduin River. Spring was in high bloom and the weather was perfect for camping out. Legolas hoped it remained so. He had no desire to mar the landscape with permanent shelter, but wasn't sure how many storms Gimli could weather these days.

Once it had been brought to his attention, there was no denying the fact that his dearest friend was no longer the hale creature he had long known. As if to emphasize it, Gimli did not arrive alone and on foot, as had always been the case before when they traveled together. Instead, he rode atop a pony of Rohan, and on a second pony rode a small-framed dwarven child.

Legolas was far too courteous to show his twinge of disappointment, and by the time they arrived in camp, even his surprise had been transformed into a smile of welcome. He was glad to see his friend, more so even than he had expected. The months apart had been long, and a particularly grim fit of sea-longing had overtaken him for one miserable week. The sight of Gimli was like a balm for his sore heart.

“Gimli!” he cried, bounding over a small log to reach him. Before the dwarf could slide from his mount, Legolas had his arms around him in exuberant greeting. “I was growing bored, waiting,” he told him.

Gimli made impatient noises that Legolas understood were to cover his own delight at being reunited. “Ancestors forbid we should be at the mercy of a bored elf,” he grumbled against Legolas's shoulder. “It is good to see you, my friend,” this, quieter, closer to the elf's ear.

The pair broke apart and Gimli slid from his saddle. The child followed his lead, landing lightly and bowing a greeting to Legolas. “It is good to meet you, Master Legolas,” she said politely. Her voice was much lower than an elven female's, but there was a softness to it that Legolas immediately recognized as feminine. “I am Mâglah. I am here to assist Lord Gimli.”

“Greetings,” Legolas returned, grasping her hand as he would an elf maid's and bowing low before her.

Whenever he bowed thus over the hobbit girls – children and grandchildren of Sam Gamgee, mostly – they twittered and blushed. But if he were expecting a giggle from Mâglah, he would have been disappointed. She stood stoic, allowing his show but participating little, smiling just enough to be polite. It was the kind of response he'd come to expect from a dwarf; his smile became more natural.

“I am Legolas of Ithilien,” he told her.

“She knows who you are, you tiresome elf!” Gimli interjected, his tone gruff but not unkind. “We will lose the day to your silly formalities. Let's set up camp before the sun sets.”

The dwarves had brought a large tent. At first Legolas assumed it was for Mâglah, imagining that a young dwarf girl would have trouble sleeping in the open air, but she quickly showed him its practicality beyond sleeping. He watched in awe as the girl – certainly not old enough to be considered an adult – briskly set to the task of setting it up. “We should put the workshop on this side,” she told Gimli as she hammered stakes into the earth. “If it should rain, we will have shelter from the wind over the sea. I think it might save our fire from the damp.” 

When she lifted the ridgepole, Legolas moved to help – there was no way she was tall enough to hold it while propping the supports. Gimli put a hand on his arm, stopping him. “She is very resourceful,” he whispered. “Among the dwarves of Aglarond, she is considered a prodigy.”

The friends watched as she tidily bound poles together with rope and used one in each hand to raise the high ridgepole. With a deft yank, her knots came free and the ridgepole slipped into pre-cut notches at the top of each support pole. It took only seconds to shore up the supports with secondary pillars. In moments, the tent was secure. 

“She has never camped out before,” Gimli said, pride gleaming in his face. “But she designed the tent for me. Clever little thing, isn't she? Only thirty-five years old!” 

The strangest feeling washed over Legolas. He was discomfited, and knew not why. “I need your help in this wood, my friend,” he said, “if your young marvel can be left to work alone.” There was nothing in his tone that could offer offense, and yet Gimli eyed him sharply before nodding.

“That is why I am here,” he reminded Legolas. “To be of help to you.”

Together they trudged into the woods. Legolas had been there the day before, painting sylvan symbols on the necessary trees. It took the dwarf no time at all to take note. Gimli touched the yellow paint and looked up. “Have we come to tattoo the forest?” he asked.

“Those are to be cut.” Legolas could not remove the sorrow from his voice. “They are very young – all less than threescore years – but the wood we need cannot be brittle.”

Gimli stared at him, aghast. “You mean me to fell these trees?” he asked. “With my axe?”

Legolas sat on a fallen log, his fingers reaching to stroke the blanket of moss that grew there. “It cannot be helped,” he said softly. “Elves have long used the wood near the Grey Havens to build their ships. A bargain was made with that forest centuries ago, and the trees have cause to be proud of their sacrifice.”

Gimli moved to stand close. His hand dropped onto Legolas's shoulder in comfort. Legolas leaned into his touch. “And these trees?” he asked softly.

“I had to persuade them,” the elf confessed, his voice weary. “The ones marked have agreed.”

Gimli looked about the forest, consternation on his face. It wasn't a strong, old forest, like those to the north and west. There was no dense canopy to block the light; saplings and brush grew thick beneath each tree. “This wood is young,” Gimli said unexpectedly. Legolas nodded. “But it must have pride of its own.”

To the elf's surprise, he suddenly scrambled onto the log beside him, standing with his hand on Legolas's shoulder for balance. “Listen up, trees!” Gimli called. “I, Gimli, son of Glóin and Lord of the Glittering Caves of Aglarond, thank you for your noble sacrifice! Legolas of Ithilien has ever been your champion. He asks not lightly for your help today. The young of your kind are here to bear witness to what you do this day, and your names will go down in lore for your bravery. Thank you!”

He slid down to sit next to Legolas, his face flushed. “Thank you,” Legolas whispered, grateful.

“Think it will help?” Gimli asked softly.

Legolas smiled. “I believe it has already,” he said. He wasn't sure if he spoke of the trees or only his own feeling about it, but he was reminded of how incomplete his world was without his friend nearby. “We make a good team.”

The dwarf chuckled and took a long pipe from his breast pocket. “I have always said so,” he claimed.

Legolas laughed. “You have not, my friend,” he accused lightly. “Most times you call me 'useless' or 'flighty' and insist that work is done despite my help, rather than because of it.”

Gimli chewed upon his pipe, grumbling. “And that is why we make a good team,” he insisted. “You would be lost without me.”

It was truer than Gimli knew, though Legolas would not bring the mood down by saying as much. He gazed into the wood, trying, rather, to visualize a ship just large enough for two. “Trees don't really have names,” he commented instead.

Gimli swatted at him. “Have they lore?” he asked, sheepish.

“Indeed,” Legolas assured him, smiling.

“Good enough then. Now, shut up and let me enjoy this pipe before I start the real work.”

***  
In the days that followed, they spent a goodly amount of time cutting trees. While Gimli chopped, Legolas led the ponies back and forth from camp, hauling logs. Mâglah worked magic with the logs, hewing and planing them into planks. Legolas knew that the dwarves were doing the lion's share of the work. It sat ill with him, so after a time he asked the girl to show him how to turn logs into boards.

They had spoken little. Mâglah worked hard all day, and when the sun set, she and Gimli usually retired to their tent to tweak the plans for metal work and carvings. More than once, Legolas had been invited in – to plan or talk or sleep – and each time he'd politely refused, claiming a need to visit with the starlight. And while it was true that he would rather spend his nights in the open air, when he was honest with himself he could admit that he was not terribly keen on watching Gimli with the girl.

They had a rhythm, a synchronization, that the elf found irritating. Mâglah knew what her lord needed an instant before Gimli could ask, and when they worked together in the tight spaces of the workshop, their movements were a choreographed dance of stepping and shifting with so little awkwardness that it seemed to Legolas they moved as one. Sometimes they spoke softly to one another in Khuzdul, though never when they thought Legolas was within hearing. More aggravating was when they spoke not at all, using hand signs to communicate things Legolas knew not. So often he watched them, unsure whether or not a conversation was happening beneath his perception. 

“The most important thing is to use the right axe,” Mâglah told him, handing him a few to try out. Legolas didn't know what heft and balance to look for, but he chose a single-bladed broad axe that felt comfortable in his hand. 

“Not a bad choice,” she said, approving. “Now watch.” The log was small, braced on two crutches crafted from the crotches of trees, and only a few feet off the ground. The dwarf girl straddled it and, wielding an axe much smaller than the one in Legolas's hands, began to whittle long slivers of wood away. Her strawberry blond braid moved with each swing, reminding Legolas of Gimli on the battlefield all those years ago – her hair was a softer color, but its thickness and plait were just like how his friend had worn it then. Her work went far more quickly than he expected, and before long she had a long flat surface where the tree trunk had once curved.

“Your turn,” she instructed gruffly. 

Legolas adjusted the height so he didn't have to bend so much, then tried his hand at hewing the other side of the log. The purposeful swing of the axe felt good, and as the long slivers of green wood gathered around his boots, he felt a stirring deep inside.

It had been generally believed among his people that even the least skilled of elven-kind could build his or her ship to the Undying Lands. It was said to be in the blood – the collected memories of the Eldar that came before. Legolas had never quite believed such stories, but as he shaped the log to his purpose, it was as though his hands knew the heft of the axe and his body remembered the movements.

Mâglah made approving noises. “My mother was skeptical,” she told him, “but Lord Gimli said you were capable.”

Legolas was surprised. It was the first time he'd heard a dwarf speak so casually about their mother. Perhaps it was because she was so young? Or did female dwarves speak more easily about one another? It disturbed Legolas that he still knew so little of Gimli's people. Hadn't they spent half a lifetime as friends?

“Does Gimli speak of me often?” he asked, suddenly eager to hear.

The girl's expression shuttered, and he was reminded of how Aragorn always jested about the secrecy of dwarves. Something in her expression was exactly like Gimli's when Legolas asked about something the dwarf would keep to himself. She turned away from him to gather boards she had already finished. “I could not say,” she hedged. “I am not often the one he speaks with.”

The elf wondered again what connection there was between his friend and this girl. She was as skilled as Gimli boasted, but very young to be away from her family, working like this to build a boat for an elf she barely knew, even by reputation, it seemed. For his part, Gimli had never so much as hinted at knowing a girl her age, let alone one he thought so highly of. “Do you know him well?” he asked, not pausing his work.

She looked surprised by the question. “Of course,” she said. “I cannot remember a time I did not know him.”

Legolas had no answer for that. He worked silently until Mâglah moved away, declaring him well up to the task of hewing. He should have been pleased to be doing well, but something about the exchange left him feeling disagreeable.

***  
“What ails you, lad?” Gimli asked some nights after. It was late – Mâglah had withdrawn to her bedroll in the tent, but Gimli had made excuses to stay up with Legolas. He poked the fire and sat near to where the elf deftly plaited sheets for the sails.

Legolas didn't look up from his work, though his hands could have managed the rope easily without the help of his eyes. “It is nothing,” he said.

Gimli took up some cotton threads and began his own plait. “Nonsense,” he said. “You've been quiet for days. Is it because we're so close to the sea? Is it starting to eat at you?”

It was not the sea that had made the elf's heart heavy, though it seemed odd, now that Gimli had mentioned it, that it had not. His thoughts were occupied with Mâglah. Not with the dwarf herself – she was helpful and pleasant and nearly all he might wish for in a camping companion – but that she was so like Gimli. Her movements, her mannerisms, her way of speaking – everything she did made Legolas think of his friend. At first it was a comfort, but as the days passed, their similarities wore on him.

“Why does Mâglah wear her hair like that?” He knew that the patterns of hair weaving were significant to dwarves, though he had yet to sort out the meaning of even a single plait. “You wore yours in the same manner, during the War.”

The old dwarf looked startled. “It is a practical braid,” he said dismissively, “worn mostly by the young. It signifies little.”

Legolas reached out and touched the more intricate weave of Gimli's current fashion – one he'd worn since soon after the War had ended. It was an intimacy, the like of which he had rarely claimed, and Gimli's breath stuttered. “And yours?” Legolas asked. “You changed it suddenly, years ago, but never since. What does it signify?”

Gimli pulled away. “Is this was has you in a melancholy mood? Hair braiding?”

Legolas looked at the fire, his hands moving once more to his work. He knew well enough not to persist when Gimli sidestepped a question thusly. He would get no answers no matter how he tried.

For a long spell their fingers worked in silence. The fire crackled and the river murmured, and Legolas could hear Mâglah's soft breathing as she slept, yards away.

“Is Mâglah your daughter?” 

He hadn't meant to ask so directly. He hadn't meant to ask at all, but the question had been burning him for hours. As soon as the words were said, he wished to to take them back. Their friendship was dear to the dwarf, he knew, but perhaps not as dear as Legolas believed. A daughter would mean a wife somewhere, a family that his friend had never mentioned. A host of secrets that Legolas had never been privy to. And Gimli always had reasons for keeping his secrets, whatever they might be.

His stomach twisted painfully and he looked at the ground. He longed for the uncomplicated past, before his own feelings began to chip at the ground between them, threatening to split it into a chasm.

Gimli chuckled ruefully. “You think me so disloyal?” he asked, dark humor in his voice. “That I would wed without so much as a mention and raise a secret family?”

Put like that, it sounded absurd, but Legolas was feeling less than rational. “It is possible!” he cried. “I know not how a dwarf views his friendships with those who are not his kind. I cannot assume that you would not keep such things secret, just because I would not.” He was agitated and cross now, more so for not knowing exactly who should be the object of his dismay.

“You can assume that much and more, my dearest friend,” Gimli said quietly. “It has been many years since I've striven to hide anything at all from you.”

Legolas said nothing. The fire popped, sending a spiral of sparks into the air. 

“Mâglah is my sister's daughter,” Gimli told him, after a pause. “She is my treasure and my heir, but she is not mine.”

His words eased away most of the sting. It was foolish, then, to have gotten himself so upset. Legolas's muscles began to relax, the tension of the past few days draining. “Forgive me,” he said softly. He was relieved that it was only Gimli to witness his embarrassment. The dwarf had overlooked mortification more than once, through the years.

Gimli glanced obliquely, a smile seeming to twitch behind his beard. “Your moods are a wonder to me, Legolas Greenleaf. Did you never wonder why I did not marry?”

“From time to time,” Legolas answered, straining to keep his voice steady. His hands fumbled with the rope he wove, the pattern altering into a messy kink. “But I would not presume to ask.”

Gimli barked a sarcastic laugh. “You presume to do as much and more on any other subject, but on this you are, as always, distant and polite.” 

It wasn't that Legolas hadn't wondered. Rather, he hadn't needed to. He had long known Gimli's heart, though it seemed that he wasn't as certain these days as he had been in the past. It was never a question of reciprocation, rather, of being brave enough to rework that which was already far more perfect than Legolas had ever dreamed a friendship being. An admission of love could not help but change things between them, and even the promise of bliss was never enough to goad the elf into risking their current joy.

“I am sorry if I have offended you,” Legolas said stiffly. They had come to this precipice before, but this was the first time Gimli showed any sign of pushing them over.

At the last moment, the dwarf retreated. “Do not mind me, my friend,” he said in a gentler tone. “It seems that I too, have spells of moodiness. But dwarves are a hardy folk. I have lived long with the knowledge that this particular love must remain unrequited. The reminder of it pains me but little.”

Legolas unraveled. The rope he worked fell limp in useless hands and his insides seemed to forget their tasks of moving blood and breath. He sat frozen, every nerve focused on the friend who sat only inches away.

Gimli continued, not noticing or simply not heeding his friend's sudden change. “I would not alter what lies between us. The reward may be great, but it has always been uncertain. And I am no gambler.” He stood and, without looking at Legolas, disappeared into the tent.

Slowly, slowly, Legolas remembered how to breathe. He thawed in stages, his heart resuming its steady pace, his fingers finding the means to continue their work. He finished the rope that night, the whole time focused to catch each shift and sigh as Gimli settled down to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still building the boat. Legolas deals with his feelings for Gimli even as he is is hit hard with the reminder of his friend's unavoidable mortality.

_A pale orange glow lit the east; another night passed. Legolas stirred, his muscles stiff. He had lost track of days and nights already, each passing in a monotonous haze. Only his thoughts had distinction, and even they had been bleeding together, each memory less sharp than the last._

_He checked the stars, attempting a rough calculation of his position. He was on track, but had no idea how much farther he would travel. The journey to Valinor was a thing of legend – no elf in his memory had ever returned to record the distance or travel time. A twist of cynicism made him wonder if he would ever find its shores. Perhaps he was doomed to drift forever in his beautiful ship, alone with his memories._

 

After that night, Legolas meant to speak to Gimli of it – of feeling and friendship and the intangible _more_ that had ever been between them. Always, though, the time was wrong or his nerve was lacking, and intention to speak became longing to. Longing turned to wishing as the ship took its shape, the stiff keel holding wide, planed strakes that made up the gracefully curved hull. As summer's heat settled over their campsite, wishing devolved into regret. Too much time had passed.

Things went on as they always had, working together in easy camaraderie. Legolas spent his days clinkering the long, flexible strakes one after another, using wool and pitch to keep them watertight. When two pairs of hands were needed, Mâglah joined him. She said little, but her skills were vast. More than once, she saved Legolas extra work, suggesting easier ways to manage the parts that troubled him. She also caught mistakes early, saving them both the trouble of doing things twice and thrice.

Her true talents, however, lay with a chisel. “May I carve the the stem and stern?” Mâglah had asked shyly on one early evening. When Legolas assented, the girl eagerly fetched a leather-bound book from her things. It seemed she had been sketching ideas since Gimli had first asked for her help on the project. Legolas looked at the designs she'd created, his heart skipping at the beauty of them.

“You can make this?” he asked. She did not answer, but Legolas noted the pride in her eyes. “You are indeed a marvel,” he told her, tracing a finger over a finely-wrought sketch. She had clearly studied Elvish design, though it seemed that growing up among the Rohirrim had colored her style as well. The high curved stem was neither Elvish nor Dwarven, but somehow a marriage of both and something all its own. It was breathtaking. 

Gimli spent his days in the forge. It was a tiny thing – more of blacksmith's forge than anything a dwarf would give name to – but the fire burned hot enough. Legolas was astounded by the amount of metal that was necessary. Day after day, the piles of steel bolts and pulleys and clamps and cleats grew. “Your crafting will sink her,” Legolas teased about the weight of it all.

“Not if your hull is solid,” Gimli retorted cheerfully. “You do know she has to be seaworthy, yes? Not just pretty to look at?”

She would be seaworthy, Legolas knew. The fact that she was also beautiful was a source of pride to him. He had always known his ship to the West would be serviceable – he should have known the moment that Gimli offered his help that she would also be lovely.

Their days had settled into a comfortable rhythm, taking turns with the obligations of keeping camp while each working on their own tasks. Evenings were spent quietly, more often than not. Mâglah wasn't much of a talker – she sketched or read one of the many books she had somehow carried along with her. The two old friends had long enjoyed the intimacy of shared silence and would sit together long into the night, each lost in his own thoughts. The herbal smoke of Gimli's pipe weed scented Legolas's hair and clothes, and he enjoyed the sensory reminder of his friend long after Gimli retired to bed each night.

Some nights the old dwarf complained of stiff joints or aching muscles. On these occasions, Mâglah would fetch a pot of sharp-smelling ointment and Gimli would remove his shirt so that she might rub it into his skin. Legolas tried not to watch them. He gazed at the stars or the clouds that covered them, trying to dream up new melodies to sing. His attention often strayed, however, to the firm curves of Gimli's shoulders, the broad planes of his back. His body had changed over the years, but it still had the memory of those many years wielding an axe. 

Legolas envied Mâglah her nursemaid's task, but could think of no way to relieve her of it. Now that misunderstanding no longer tinted the way he looked at the girl, the elf had become grateful that she was with them. She did much for Gimli, making up for many of the comforts of home that he must miss out here in the wilderness. Legolas recalled that aging dwarves preferred their comforts – in fact, the two had met more often in Aglarond than anywhere else the past few years.

How had he not realized that Gimli was growing old? He knew that time did not stretch endlessly for his friend as it did for him, but somehow he had gotten so used to having him close that he stopped thinking of it as temporary. He had somehow come to take it for granted that his friend would be there, ignoring the toll the years were taking. It made him nervous, thinking of Gimli's age.

He built the ship that much faster now.

***  
On a drizzly afternoon in early summer, Legolas crouched in the boat, affixing support ribs to the finished hull. It was uncomfortable, tedious work, and the elf was starting to lose his patience with rain-slicked tools and awkward position. Gimli and Mâglah were beneath the shelter of the tent, forging and carving respectively. Gimli was determined to finish the metalwork before week's end, and had been at it since dawn – stopping even for a bite to eat only after the younger dwarf insisted.

After the third time Legolas cracked his knuckles in the tight spaces of his work, he contemplated joining the dwarves in the tent. There was no work for him there, but there were soft places sit and a fire to dry his clothes. There would be conversation and stories to tell. They had all been working tirelessly for months – he didn't think that wasting half of such a miserable day would impose too terribly on the time frame Gimli seemed to keep in his mind.

He had almost made up his mind when his keen ears heard his friend make an odd sound. It was quiet, more like a gasp or grunt than a cry, but it was not a noise Legolas had ever heard from Gimli, and it made him start. He jumped to his feet just as Mâglah cried out.

It took Legolas only a few seconds to run the distance between their makeshift shipyard and the camp. He burst into the tent. 

Gimli lay on the ground, Mâglah crouched beside him. 

“Gimli!” Legolas cried.

The old dwarf turned slowly to his voice, his face a pale mask of tension and pain. The movement seemed to send another spasm through him, and he closed his eyes, crying out softly.

“What has happened?” Legolas asked the girl. “What is wrong with him?” 

He fell to his knees next to his friend and took his hand in both of his own. “Gimli,” he urged softly. “I would help you.” 

The dwarf's eyes opened. “Le-” he whispered painfully. A deep pain wrenched him away again, and the name became a groan.

“You must go!” 

Legolas had almost forgotten Mâglah. She pulled at his shoulder, insistent, but he shrugged her away. “I will not leave him!” he hissed. He smoothed Gimli's hair from his face. 

“You must!” Mâglah's voice was desperate. Legolas looked up at her, shocked to discover that she was in earnest. “You cannot be in here,” she insisted, pulling Gimli's hand from the elf's grasp. With surprising force, she pushed Legolas away. “You will only agitate him and he needs to be still!”

It was true – he'd seen himself how Gimli struggled toward him, how he fought just to speak. The fury that had been growing in Legolas's chest suddenly dissipated. He allowed himself to be herded out of the tent, agitated himself and dismayed that his very presence could make Gimli's condition worse.

He sat on a log outside the tent, barely aware when the drizzle increased to rain. He listened to what he was forbidden to witness – Mâglah's soothing Khuzdul, the soft squeak of a cork being pulled from what must be a phial of medicine, the pained sounds Gimli made when he was finally able to move to his pallet. It was a long time before his friend's breathing eased into something unlabored. Even longer before it fell into the warm, familiar rhythm of his snore-riddled sleep.

This hadn't been the first time Gimli had collapsed, Legolas realized. Mâglah's reaction was too organized, too swift. Her young voice had pushed against him with the authority of knowledge. And the medicine. A chill crept over him that had nothing to do with the cold rain and his damp clothes. How could there be medicine if there hadn't already been sickness?

He looked at the tent, water streaming from its canvas eaves, and wished he could go to his friend. Gimli was sleeping, so he would not be agitated, but still Legolas did not move from his spot. Mâglah might be guarding the door, and the elf would not disrespect Gimli's kin by pushing rudely past, no matter how desperately he longed to be near him.

Slowly, the rain lessened and then stopped. The sun peeked from beyond the clouds and the heat returned, making the ground steam.

***  
“I am sorry.” Her voice came from behind the tent flap.

Legolas didn't look up. “You need not hide from me,” he told her. All the fight had gone from him, and his voice was easily gentled.

She peeked out an instant before she stepped into the sunshine, and her eyes were so like Gimli's that Legolas's heart skipped. “I am sorry,” she said again. “I should not have been so rude.”

He waved a hand, dismissing it. “How is he?” he asked. “What sickness is this?”

She didn't answer right away. She walked slowly toward him and sank down next to him on the log. With every moment of silence, Legolas became more afraid.

“He will recover,” the girl said carefully. “But –” she looked at her hands, twisting a ring around and around her first finger.

The pain in his chest increased until he could no longer breathe. 

“He is dying,” he said.

Mâglah made a choking noise, nodding her head. “It is no longer a matter of years for him, but months.” Tears slipped from her eyes – Gimli's eyes – and she did not bother to wipe them away. 

Legolas jumped to his feet, needing to move, to walk. But he didn't want to leave Mâglah or the campsite. He didn't want to leave Gimli. So he paced. It wasn't enough time. In his mind he cursed the short lives of dwarves. He cursed himself for refusing to see the signs, for not stealing his friend across the sea years before, when the first lines creased his face and the first silver hair peeked through. He cursed himself for letting love overtake him in the first place.

But no, he could not regret that.

“Lord Gimli made me swear not to tell you of his sickness.” Mâglah said softly from beneath her tears. “I thought it was because he was too proud to let you see him falter. I misunderstood.”

Legolas looked down at her, startled out of his own head by her sudden willingness to speak. 

“When I saw you, when I saw you with him today, I saw the truth of it. He was not trying to keep his dignity; he was sparing you pain.” She looked up at him, her face bright with tears. “I misunderstood; there is no need for dignity where there is love.”

Legolas didn't realize he was crying until she handed him a handkerchief. “Go,” she said sadly. “Sit by him. He is asleep, but it will do him good to wake to your face.”

***  
As Mâglah promised, Gimli did recover. By the next morning, he was up and eager to work.

“Nothing strenuous for you, Uncle,” the girl told him sternly. She put him to work etching, and, to Legolas's surprise and relief, the old dwarf obeyed. He spent the day perched on a stool near the entrance of the tent, taking advantage of both the shade and the breeze.

Legolas stayed close by, only reluctantly moving down the slope to where his own work waited. He didn't like having Gimli out of his sight, but compensated for it by working quietly, his ears trained on his friend's breath, waiting for any hitch or gasp, no matter how slight.

None came, and without his usual distraction of song, the day dragged endlessly. He finished the ribbing and started on nailing the carved beams above each rib. By midday, the hull was reinforced and watertight, ready for gunwales.

Gimli came over the rise as he finished the last beam, looking steady enough on his short legs that Legolas had trouble reconciling it with the memory of him, pale and pained, from the day before. The elf was struck by sudden shyness, unsure how to speak to his friend.

The dwarf had lain sleeping for long hours the day before. Legolas sat near him, holding his hand and, from time to time, mopping his brow with a cool, damp cloth. It was a poor attempt at nursing, but what did an elf know of sickness? He sang to him instead, old cradle songs at first, the soothing melodies that made him remember his father, and, more distantly, his mother. When he lost his vigor with those he found love songs instead, trusting that no one – even his beloved friend – would be able to glean any truths from the Elvish phrasing.

He'd felt like Gimli's lover during those hours, allowing himself to express every secret emotion that for decades had been hidden. And now Gimli was there, awake and vibrant, the same Gimli he had ever been, while to Legolas, the whole world had been altered.

“Mâglah told me that I alarmed you yesterday,” the dwarf said. 

“You could say that,” Legolas said carefully.

“So now you know.” Gimli's voice was gruff and he looked at his boots.

“And when were you planning to tell me?” It wasn't anger that Legolas felt, exactly, though it wasn't pleasant, either.

Gimli looked abashed. He sat on a pile of boards and picked up an axe that lay imbedded in one. He studied it carefully, and for a long moment, Legolas thought he was going to be denied an answer.

“It pained me to hurt you,” the dwarf said at last, his voice very soft. “The time was coming no matter what I said or didn't say, but I would have you look at me the way you always had. For as long as I could, at least.”

Legolas could not answer for the lump in his throat.

“I cannot bear to see that look in your eyes,” Gimli confessed.

“What look?” Legolas asked. His question made Gimli look up at last, meeting his gaze.

“Like a wounded animal.”

“And you would have me hide what I feel?” Legolas asked. His voice was all wrong – harder than he wanted. As though he blamed Gimli for being mortal.

Gimli went to him, standing on the other side of the hull where Legolas knelt. He reached out one hand, smoothing it over Legolas's long hair. The elf closed his eyes, willing his body not to lean into the touch. His body won out, and he slipped both arms around the dwarf's middle, clutching him close in a hug.

“I would save you the feeling of it at all,” Gimli rumbled near his ear.

They stood together for a long time, each lost in his own thoughts, until Legolas heard the sound of a rider approaching. By the time they got up to the campsite, the messenger had nearly arrived. He was dressed in black and wore the white tree of Gondor on his chest.

“Master Legolas,” the man called, his voice urgent. “Lord Gimli. Queen Arwen bids you come to Minas Tirith in haste.”

“What is the matter?” Gimli asked in alarm.

“It is King Elessar,” the messenger said. “He is failing.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything is different in Minas Tirith, and Legolas gets a new perspective.

_It started as a shadow on the horizon. The thin line of cloud grew dark as it came closer, and Legolas could do nothing but watch it approach. The wind picked up, growing cold as it whipped through his hair and tunic._

_Legolas had never thought of the sea as a dangerous thing, but that day he almost wished he had gone west with his father, with elves who knew something of the ocean's true face. The water grew violent, rolling waves breaking into white foam against the low hull of his craft. His ship tossed and tilted, thrown high onto the peaks of the waves and tipping – almost capsizing – into the deep troughs. He hung on to the tiller – carved smooth by Mâglah to fit the curve of his palm – and wondered what it would be like to drown. He almost wished he would find out._

_With a great cracking sound, the sail tore lose at one corner, the broken line whipping across Legolas's face. The pain was cold and wet, and the elf was not surprised to find blood on his fingers after touching his cheek. He ignored it, lunging to grab the flapping edge of the sail. He secured it to its rigging with the frayed end of the rope. It crossed his mind to bring the whole mast down, to save the sail from tearing in the wind, but he wasn't sure he could manage it on his own._

_Just when he thought it could not get worse, the rain came. Rather, it seemed he sailed into a vast sheet of it. It poured down hard like no rain he'd ever seen in Middle Earth._

_Drenched, cold, his cheek throbbing, Legolas curled up on the bench by the tiller. He missed everything he'd ever loved about his life before – the forest, the stars, the smell of a summer night in the peaks of Minas Ithil. He missed his friends, his father. He missed Gimli. He closed his eyes and tried to summon the energy to care whether or not he was being blown too far off course to find his way back._

 

They had not made it to Minas Tirith in time.

The journey between their camp on the Anduin Delta and the White city could have been made in one day's hard ride, but Gimli was in no condition for even a moderate ride. They rode together, as they used to, on Legolas's strong horse, stopping only when the dwarf could go no further without rest. The road was not difficult, but it was a day and a night and into the next day before they reached the glorious City Gates.

Mâglah had stayed behind, insisting that she would only slow them more. “I have no friends in Minas Tirith,” she told Gimli. “And there is so much yet to be done here. Do not worry about me – I will not be bothered out here.” Legolas saw the wisdom in the plan, though Gimli was loathe to leave her. In the end, it was the urgency that decided it; there was just no time to argue.

Queen Arwen herself met them when they arrived at the palace, her face pale and her eyes rimmed red from crying. Her daughters hovered near, both as dark, sad, and lovely as their mother. 

Legolas knew upon seeing them that they had arrived too late.

“ _Hiro hîdh nen gurth Elessar,_ ” he said softly. 

Beside him, Gimli sucked his breath in sharply as he, too, realized. He stepped past Legolas and engulfed Arwen's hand in both of his own. “Aragorn was the best of all of us,” he told her, his voice gentle and heavy with sorrow. “The world is made less by his passing.”

The Queen's eyes widened as they fell upon the aged dwarf. She squeezed his hands and gazed into his face. “We are all diminished,” she agreed in a whisper.

Legolas could not have said it better. He felt the burn of tears in his eyes and blinked them away. He would not cry while Aragorn's family stood strong before him. “Can we help in any way?” he asked instead.

Arwen shook her head. “It is all arranged,” she told him. “Thank you for coming. You were his dearest friends, and so you are dear to me and my family.” Legolas was soothed to hear the lilt of his people behind her words – it had been far too long since he had heard even the shadow of Elvish, and it eased something of the hard knot that was growing in his chest. 

“Your old rooms have been prepared, my friends,” she told them. “ _Gi nathlam hi._ ” 

***  
Aragorn's funeral was a far quieter affair than Legolas had expected. The entire city was in mourning, and a solemn stillness greeted the funeral procession as it wound its way down the long avenues of Minas Tirith toward Rath Dinen, the silent street where the ancient Kings of Gondor lay in rest. Women and girls threw deep purple blossoms after the coffin, and Legolas's sharp ears picked up some murmuring and a great deal of weeping.

By the time they reached the place where the tombs of ancient kings stood in stately wear, the procession had dwindled to only a few. Respect for Elessar and his family kept people at a distance, and for that Legolas was grateful. 

Eldarion stood with his arm around his mother, and Legolas was pained for them both. He was pained for Eldarion's sisters, who hovered near their husbands – men who could never live up to the memory of their remarkable father. Legolas ached for Gimli, who wept as the honor guard moved Elessar to the marble bed that would forevermore be his resting place.

And he hurt for himself, too. It was a deep, throbbing sort of ache, the like of which he'd never felt before. Death was rare in his life, but certainly not unknown. He thought of Boromir. Of Merry and Pippin. And so many of the elves he'd grown up with, killed defending Mirkwood during the War. 

But Aragorn. If Legolas were to choose a brother, it would have been him.

Gimli bowed his white head, catching Legolas's notice. But he couldn't think of Gimli. Not now. How could he contemplate losing Gimli while his heart shattered for Aragorn? How would he even survive such a hurt?

Arwen's voice pulled him from his thoughts. She started the lament low – so low that even her own children might not have been able to perceive it – but slowly it rose. Eldarion joined next, then the girls as one voice.

When Legolas finally added his own voice to the song, Gimli looked up suddenly. An expression that the elf had never seen crossed his features, a sort of softening that made his tear-filled eyes look even more gentle than usual. Pain spiked in Legolas's chest.

He reached out and took Gimli's hand.

***  
Eldarion smoked the same kind of pipe weed as his father. Legolas noted this as they sat together the day following the funeral. They had been talking of Aragorn and the Nine Walkers – stories Eldarion had probably learned in the cradle, but sought to hear again for the comfort of them.

“You were not bothered in the Paths of the Dead?” the man asked, shaking his head. “Not even a little?”

In truth, the only concern Legolas had suffered during that adventure was for Gimli. He had never doubted for a moment that Aragorn would succeed in his quest. And the dead of men could not rise fear in an elf, no matter the circumstances. It was Gimli's terror that clenched his heart those long nights, with his own inability to soothe it.

“Legolas?” Arwen stood in the doorway, her eyes no longer red, but looking pale and fragile nonetheless. “ _Tolo hí_ ,” she beckoned in a low voice. With a nod to Eldarion, Legolas followed her from the room to a small antechamber with a glorious vista of the Plains of Pelennor through the open window.

Once they were alone, Arwen turned to him suddenly, her polite serenity falling away. “You must take him west!” she implored in Elvish. “He is near his end, Legolas!”

Legolas started. She spoke of Gimli, of course; he realized that immediately. Of all the things he could have imagined the Queen would have to say to him, though, this was the last. “We are building the ship,” he told her, foolishly, for he was aware even as he spoke that she had already known where to send her messenger to find them. 

“And Gimli has agreed to go with you?” she asked.

Legolas said nothing. It had never occurred to him that his friend might refuse to sail. 

Arwen saw his surprise and grasped his arms, giving him a small shake. “You do not want to suffer this, Legolas,” she told him, her voice thick with pain. “Our kind was never meant to.” Before the War, it would have surprised and even flattered Legolas to have the Evenstar refer to them as a kind, but as elves had grown scarce in Middle Earth, distinctions between them became less. Now it was just the two of them, and Arwen had abandoned her immortality. Did that make him the last, then?

“Your love is with you still, but all can plainly see that he fails. He will not endure much longer.” It did not occur to Legolas to wonder how Arwen knew the secrets of his heart; it was enough that she spoke out loud what he had so long feared to say.

They both knew that Valinor would not save Gimli's life, ultimately, but it would give him time. And Legolas suddenly realized that he desperately needed time – as much as he could get. They were at the cusp of something, he and Gimli. 

“I will take him across the sea,” Legolas promised.

***  
The girl behind the counter eyed Legolas. “You're the first elf I've ever seen,” she said. “My grandmother said that elves used to come here plenty, when she was a little girl, but it's been ages since anyone around here has spied one. Apart from the Queen, of course.”

Legolas smiled at her. She was a pretty little thing – the reason he'd chosen that shop at all. There were plenty of places selling the kind of cloth he needed, but he'd been drawn to this shop girl when he saw her through the window. Her carefree happiness and cheery smile were exactly the sorts of things that might make him feel himself again, if only for a few minutes.

“I come but rarely,” he told her.

“And now I suppose you'll be sailing away and leaving us all elf-less once more,” she said, cutting the bolt she'd chosen for him. The cream-colored cloth was strong and lightweight, perfect, she'd told him, for use as a sail, if his stitches were good and his thread strong. She'd ensured the latter by selling him several spools of her heaviest gauge.

“Alas, it is what we do,” Legolas said, a smirk playing on his lips. It felt good to flirt with a pretty girl again.

The bell by the door jingled. She glanced up to greet the next customer with a warm smile, but then returned her entire attention to Legolas. She wrapped the fabric and put the bundle into his hands, allowing her fingers to brush slowly against his in the process. “Must you go soon?” she asked coquettishly. “I've only just discovered you.”

“None can stop an elf sailing, once he has a mind to go,” a warm voice insisted from behind. Gimli. Legolas turned and smiled at his friend.

“Then I simply must change his mind, Master Dwarf,” the shop girl said cheerfully. “What say you?” she asked Legolas, leaning forward to give him a clearer view of her charming bosom. Her voice dropped. “Will you linger while you stitch that sail at least? I can help with the close work.”

Gimli's eyes narrowed. “He has plenty of help already, this one,” he growled, and Legolas had the sudden urge to laugh. 

“It is a tempting offer,” he told the girl easily, “but my friend is correct. Also, I fear I cannot stay in the city much longer.”

The shop girl laughed merrily, unperturbed by the rejection. “Return if your helper does not suit,” she urged him. “I promise you will find my fingers to be more nimble than most.”

Legolas did not doubt it. He grinned at the suggestion. Girls were much bolder these days than they had been in his youth.

Together, he and Gimli left the shop, Legolas tucking the large package beneath his arm. Gimli immediately lit his pipe, shocked and spluttering over the girl's provocative offer. “This is why I urged my sister not to allow Mâglah to play with the girls of Rohan,” he grumbled, puffing at the weed. “They have no shame.”

Legolas laughed. “I rather liked her,” he insisted.

“You would.” Gimli rolled his eyes. “Foolish elf. You have no idea what's good for you.”

It seemed redundant to point out that he hadn't taken the girl up on her offer. “I happen to think I have a very solid notion of what's good for me,” Legolas told him instead. He glanced down at Gimli from the corner of his eye, gauging his reaction. The dwarf snorted.

For a long stretch they walked in silence. Legolas was remembering that night – weeks ago, now – when Gimli so casually mentioned love. “It's not unrequited, you know,” he said as though he were continuing that long-ago conversation. It was suddenly easy to speak, now that he knew that there were far more terrifying things than this.

Gimli looked up sharply, his steps faltering. “What?” he asked.

“You spoke of... You spoke of love. I wanted you to know that it is not – nor has it ever been – unrequited.”

Gimli froze on the street. Legolas kept walking, though he slowed his steps when he heard his friend scramble to catch up. He fought the urge to look at him, half afraid of what would come next.

The dwarf fell into step beside him once more. He chewed his pipe, seeming to mull over Legolas's confession. In silence of spoken words, but a cacophony of heartbeats, they walked up two winding streets and into the small garden courtyard near the palace where the entrance to Gimli's rooms was located. 

“I have long suspected it,” the dwarf said at last, turning to Legolas beneath a tree the elf himself had planted nearly a hundred years earlier. “Though the words have never been said between us, always have I understood you, Legolas.” His eyes were dark and shining beneath white eyebrows.

Legolas sat on a bench, pained from unknowingly holding his breath. He dropped the package of sailcloth and took both of Gimli's hands in his own. He looked full into Gimli's dear, wonderful face. “Come with me to Valinor,” he said softly. His heart brimmed with hope.

Gimli leaned close, pressing his mouth to the elf's. His kiss was tentative, searching. It suddenly seemed to Legolas that every sensation he'd felt during his long life had merely been practice for this: Gimli's breath, his taste, the soft scratch of his beard. He parted his lips and the kiss deepened, until his friend's hands in his own were his only anchor to the real world.

When at last they moved apart, Legolas saw stars. Gimli stood only a little above him, his smile fond and indulgent. “I had to know,” the dwarf said gruffly, “what that would feel like.”

***  
When, two days later, they left Minas Tirith, the experience had not yet been repeated. They took their time on the road, letting the horse choose their pace and, to some extent, their path. Legolas had always enjoyed sharing a mount with Gimli, but this time, the feeling of the dwarf's thumbs tucked into his belt had added significance. 

It had been a sad journey – even the joy of kissing Gimli had done very little to erase the sorrow of losing Aragorn, after all – but Legolas felt peaceful for the first time since talking with Mâglah about Gimli's condition. He would come with him into the West – it was certain now – and the Undying Lands would heal him, Legolas was sure. And then they would have time to explore the feelings they'd been foolish enough to waste a lifetime hiding.

They camped for the night near the crashing foot of a waterfall. Legolas loved the spot for its beauty, while Gimli praised its practicality, for surely there would be many delicious fish in the deep pool below the falls. The dwarf piled wood for a campfire while Legolas constructed a fishing rod from a tall reed and some of the thread he'd purchased in Minas Tirith. “Have you a hook?” he asked his friend, when it came time for one.

Gimli dug in his pack and pulled out the little oaken box he carried wherever they traveled. He flipped up the lid, revealing a tiny stash of useful items: fishing hooks, flint, little eye hooks that could be screwed into stone, a sewing kit with both dark and light thread. This time, Legolas also noted that there were three phials of medicine as well, apparently not from the supply that Mâglah has sent along when they left camp. An emergency stash?

He said nothing at first, distracted by the touch of Gimli's fingers as he carefully placed a barbed silver hook into Legolas's outstretched palm. But once the hook had been tied and baited, once Gimli was finished coaxing his orange sparks into a useful blaze, he asked.

“Your medicine,” he began cautiously. “What does it do, exactly?”

If Gimli was surprised, he did not show it. He came to share Legolas's rocky perch above the water, sitting just a fraction closer than he had on previous journeys. He pulled a fourth phial from a pocket and held it up to the fading light. The liquid was clear, with a greenish tint. “It is made of willow bark and poppy seeds,” he told his friend. “A vile-tasting combination, let me tell you.”

Legolas took it from him, tilting it this way and that. There were many elves, like Elrond, who were well-trained in the skill of healing, but Mirkwood elves were odd in this as well. Legolas had no idea of the properties of such ingredients. “Do these things cure many ills?” he asked.

Gimli worried his bottom lip with his teeth as he considered his answer. “No, my friend,” he said at last, a deep sigh shattering his words. “This only makes the pain duller, so that I may bear it.”

So much pain, then? Legolas had been through war with Gimli; he had never seen a hurt that his stout, powerful friend could not bear, usually with only a grimace and a joke. He could not imagine such an injury. His fingers curled tight around the phial, his teeth clenching in an effort to contain the sudden wave of anger that crashed around him.

It was Gimli's hand on his knee that brought him back from that furious precipice, Gimli's voice that soothed like cool water on a fiery wound. “I do bear it,” his friend told him softly. “And I have lived a long, full life. A life with you. Before you rail against the whims of the world, remember that.”

Gimli's calm nearly choked him. “I would have you live longer,” he whispered. “I would have you enjoy the living of this life, rather than simply bearing it.”

To his surprise, Gimli laughed. “I have enjoyed it,” he said. “I still enjoy it, particularly when you are so near to me.”

“Then I will never again leave your side.” He touched Gimli's weathered face, traced a thumb over the sharp cheekbone where no beard grew. The dwarf closed his eyes, leaning his cheek against Legolas's palm. 

This time, the elf claimed the kiss.

Long minutes later, a tug on the fishing line pulled Legolas reluctantly away. Gimli took advantage of the distraction, slipping back to the fire without another word. 

As he pulled the hook from the mouth of the wriggling creature, Legolas heard the distinctive sound of the cork being removed from a phial, then Gimli's short gulp and distasteful grunt. He had been in pain then, even as he returned Legolas's kisses.

Legolas liked it not at all.

***  
Mâglah, riding her little black-and-white pony, met them about a mile from camp. She looked no worse for her weeks alone, though her eyes darted too often to Gimli. Legolas suspected that she wanted him down from his horse so that she could inspect him, to make certain that the journey had done no harm. It was an impulse he could identify with – he too, had been searching for signs of sickness whenever he thought Gimli wasn't watching.

“No troubles, my dear?” Gimli asked her as they rode. 

“None, Lord Gimli,” she answered. 

She told them of the work she'd done on the ship while they were gone, finishing the stem and stern and mounting the keelson and mast fish to the hull. “I added some ornamentation to the mast,” she told Legolas just as they cleared the last rise and their camp awaited, homey and comforting, before them. “It looked so plain, and I didn't think you would mind.”

When Legolas finally saw her work that evening, he realized that ornamentation was far too humble a word for what she had done. She had carved a spiraling relief, starting about a hand's breadth higher than the elf's head. In sharp, dwarvish images, it told the story of the Nine Walkers, starting with the fellowship forming at Elrond's house and ending with Frodo and Samwise in the Cracks of Mount Doom.

He touched the beautiful woodwork reverently. It was incredible. The girl must not have slept, to have had the time to carve such a masterpiece. “Your talent is unmatched,” he told Mâglah softly. “When my people see this, your name will be listed among the Masters.”

Mâglah went to bed early, almost before the sun set. Gimli came back from a bath soon later, his hair wet and loose, curling in a riot down his back. 

“May I?” Legolas asked, pulling an ivory comb from his pack. 

Gimli inspected it, his eyebrows raised. “The knots in my hair will be honored to be tamed by such a thing,” he said, shaking his head. Legolas knew it was a bit fancy for traveling, but it had been a gift from his father, so the elf always kept it close.

Legolas sat on one of the logs and Gimli settled onto the ground before him. It took a long time to sort out the tangles – it was as though the newly-combed hair had tangled itself by the time Legolas had moved to the next section. “It's the blasted curls,” Gimli fussed. “There's naught be be done with it but braid it quickly and forget it.”

Legolas smiled. Gimli's hair was beautiful. He loved twisting the curls around his wrists and fingers, hefting its impressive weight as he divided it into sections. This was the first time he'd been allowed to touch it so intimately. “Shall I braid it, then?” he asked.

Gimli hesitated, seeming to be making up his mind about something. “No, we will leave it,” he murmured.

Legolas was disappointed. “You would rather do it yourself?” he asked.

The dwarf looked back at him, surprised. “Oh, no!” he insisted. “I was only toying with idea of changing the style a bit,” he told him. “But it will be much better for everyone if we leave it as it has been. Do you know how?”

Legolas had seen that braid for the better part of a century. He had long ago sorted out the order of the plaiting. It was a different pattern than those used by elves, heavy and intricate and, to Legolas's eye, more beautiful. “I do,” he told his friend, his fingers already separating the long strands.

Later, when Gimli's hair had nearly dried and the stars had shifted in the heavens, they still lingered, talking softly about things they had probably discussed a thousand times. The fire had burned down to embers, and only the moon's narrow crescent lit the camp. 

They had spent many a night like that, over the years, but this time Gimli's back leaned against Legolas's chest, the elf's cheek resting on his hair. Exactly as it always had been, but better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sindarin Translations:
> 
> Hiro hîdh nen gurth Elessar.  
> *May Elessar find peace in death.
> 
> Gi nathlam hi.  
> *You are welcome here.
> 
> Tolo hí.  
> *Come here.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Less boat building and more relationship building in this chapter. Legolas and Gimli talk about the end of things, whether that be sailing or dying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to say thanks to everyone who has been reading. Like all writers, I love kudos and worship comments, but I'm pretty darn happy with hits, as well. So thanks for reading, for coming back for new chapters. Only one left after this one - I hope you all enjoy it!

_Legolas was sleeping when the storm passed. It is not often that his kind needed sleep, but when they were sorely taxed or wounded, or weary from unsettled emotions, then they would fall into a deep, trance-like slumber. It was dangerous for an elf alone on the sea to let himself succumb to the helplessness of sleep, but Legolas had no choice. It would have overtaken no matter how he tried to ward it off._

_When he woke, the sea was flat and black. The moon had risen and set, but dawn had not yet begun to cast her pink glow in the eastern sky. The sleep had restored him, and, in spite of being damp and aching, in spite of his many hurts, he felt better than he had in a very long time._

_There was work to be done. The sail had torn in three places; it swelled with the wind, but the gashes flapped and guttered, and Legolas knew he was losing a great deal of speed. Water stood a knuckle deep near the keel – it did not seem much, given the torrents of rain, but it would take hours to bail. Otherwise, the ship he and Gimli built was sturdy and unscathed._

_Legolas ran his fingers across the mast, across the carved faces of Mâglah's Nine Walkers. It had been less than a year in the multitude he had lived, and yet there they were, his dearest friends. Some were lost to him forever, but some he had hope to see again. How sweet that would be._

_He raised his voice, rusty as it was from year upon year of disuse, and sang a sweet, melancholy lament to the stars. They answered back with their radiance, and Legolas soaked it up until it was painful._

_The stars reminded him that he was not alone – that at the end of this harrowing journey would be love and family. Perhaps even peace._

 

“If you rig it like that, the sheets will tangle as soon as the wind changes!” Gimli called up to Legolas, who was clinging to the mast with his arms and legs, trying to move a woven line through a tiny pulley near the top. He wished for at least the hundredth time that he had thought to run the ropes before putting up the mast. With a sigh, he pulled out the line and ran it through the opposite direction.

Gimli was resting on a stool in the the shade of a bowed willow tree. His health had deteriorated swiftly since Minas Tirith – enough that he had not grumbled even the smallest protest when Mâglah forbade him work. From that moment, she became his hands and Gimli became something of a project foreman, forever barking orders to Mâglah and Legolas while he sat about plaiting rope or stitching sailcloth. 

Now that he knew what it signified, Legolas could not help but hear – and hate – the distinct _squeak_ and _pop_ of the corks being worked out of Gimli's medicine bottles, more times each day than seemed possible. Was his pain getting worse, or was it only in Legolas's mind that the lull between doses had become shorter? He dared not ask – Gimli would speak of his health in general terms, but became sour and angry if there was even the hint of mothering from Legolas.

In that way, as in many more than the elf would have anticipated, their relationship had not changed at all since they had spoken of love. Legolas hadn't realized how intimate their friendship had already been; there were no new secrets to glean or topics to discuss. They were already each other's closest confidante, already the first person the other reached for to share every sorrow and joy. 

They touched more, now. Most of it was casually affectionate – a hand on a shoulder, the brushing of arms when they stood together – just as it might be between close friends. Legolas thought about all those years of not touching Gimli, afraid that even the most innocent contact might reveal too much about his true feelings. Now his love bubbled up inside him like a spring, determined to find outlet, and so his fingers strayed often to Gimli's hair; his knee found ways to bump and press against the dwarf's when they sat next to one another. There didn't seem to be any way for their lives to become more tangled together than they already were.

Apart from one.

Legolas wasn't even sure that Gimli wanted him that way. He was hard to read, so dwarvish and strange. Sometimes the elf would catch some passing warmth in a glance, a moment of fervid admiration that skittered away almost as soon as Legolas recognized it. But Gimli said nothing, and Legolas usually dismissed it as wishful thinking.

He wasn't quite sure what he wanted himself, either, which didn't help. The period of desperate hunger that every young elf endured had been fleeting. He'd spent his whole life without a lover, so by the time he'd met Gimli, his more carnal urges had been dormant for centuries. It was true that living the warrior's life for so long, side by side with Gimli, had awakened his cravings easily enough, providing fodder for decades' worth of fantasies. As the years had worn on, he'd found the need for such imaginings waning. 

But now the kisses. There hadn't been many, but they aroused in Legolas the memory of the aches of his youth. But Gimli's body was not an elf's, easily awakened to the remembrance of feelings from centuries past. He was long past his age of fertility, and Legolas had no idea if his body stirred as it once might have. He had no idea if it were able to.

“Are you coming down from there, or have you decided to sprout wings?” Gimli's teasing voice intruded on the elf's thoughts. “It grows late, and I believe it is your turn to cook.”

For the first time, Legolas noticed that the sun had dipped low in the west. He looked down at his friend, surprised to see that, since Legolas's last glance, he had somehow stitched yards of sailcloth, which he was rolling into to a tidy bundle. The elf was startled. He had lost so much time in thought – it seemed to be happening with frequency of late.

“You should tell me when I drift away like that,” he said as he shimmied down the mast. 

Gimli shrugged. “Your hands and feet held on, though your mind went elsewhere. Since there was no danger, I didn't want to disturb you.”

Something clawed at a memory in the oldest recesses of Legolas's mind. For a moment he considered it, troubled, but the thought did not reveal itself. Perhaps Gimli was right – it was growing late and past time to eat. A little bit of time lost in thought was no real concern, after all.

He put his hand on Gimli's shoulder as they made their way up the hill. The dwarf walked more slowly every day, and more than once Legolas had caught him leaning on his axe as though it were a walking stick. He made up his mind to cut his friend a birch cane that very night. The dwarf may be proud, but it would weigh considerably less than his axe, so Legolas thought he may be persuaded to use it.

***  
Gimli slept less and less. And then it seemed to Legolas he had given up trying. He spent his nights with the elf, taking short walks when he felt spry, or, more often than not, curled in his cloak, keeping company with Legolas as he sang or stitched or stared at the stars the way elves do. He would leave him just before dawn, disappearing into the tent for a few hours' precious sleep.

When Legolas and Mâglah put the nearly-finished ship into the river, Gimli suggested that they take their bedrolls on board to see if the movement of the water might soothe him to sleep. It was several days before the plan could be enacted – the hull needed time to swell and become watertight in its mooring – but Legolas was eager for it. It had become a comfort to have his friend's company during the darkness of night, and the prospect of holding Gimli in his arms as he drifted into slumber moved him even more.

And so they camped beneath the stars in the wide bottom of the boat. The gentle sway of the craft in the water made Gimli remember the boats of Lórien, and for a while they reminisced about that Great Year and the way it had changed them – their entire world – forever.

“My younger self would shudder to see us now,” Gimli said, chuckling. They lay shirtless, cradled in each other's arms, their long hair loose upon the same pillow. The boards were smooth beneath their blankets, sweet-smelling and watertight. “Snuggled like a pair of rabbits in a boat we built together.”

“The elf I was before would never have believed it,” Legolas said, leaning over to brush a kiss over Gimli's lips. His mouth tasted of pipe weed and poppy seed oil, though Legolas did not remember the last time he had noted his friend taking his medicine. “What fools we were.”

Gimli smiled at the starry sky. “We found our way, though,” he murmured.

“So much time we wasted,” the elf said wistfully. 

“Wasted? Nay.” Gimli turned in Legolas's arms, put his hand on the elf's cheek. “It's been a life well spent, on a path we chose for ourselves, even if we did not realize at the time that we were choosing.”

They chose this? To know love only when it was nearly too late? To keep their feelings hidden away for a century while Gimli slowly grew old and weak? “I do not remember making such a choice,” he said bitterly.

Gimli _tutted_ fondly. “Keeping your silence was not your choice?” he asked.

Legolas had no answer. He kissed Gimli's cheeks, his eyelids, his forehead, his lips. This is what he would have been doing all that time. This is the choice he would make, had he the years returned to him.

“It has been the best life I can imagine,” Gimli said a while later, breathless and flushed, “for it was spent by your side. A dwarf asks only to be near his dearest love, content in friendship as well as matrimony.” He ran his fingertips across the hard curve of Legolas's collarbone.

Matrimony. The word brought conjugal images into his mind, not far flung from the fevered fantasies of years past. Things they had never done. Things they probably would never do. “But the touching,” Legolas protested, his hand tracing the sharp pattern of inked lines that stretched from Gimli's neck into the waistband of his trousers. “The loving. Do you not regret missing that?”

Gimli grasped Legolas's hand as it swirled around his navel, yanking it away from his skin as though it burned. “I would tumble you right now,” he growled low, “if only I had the strength.”

A spark of prideful joy burned through Legolas's body. He understood that the coupling would not happen, but knowing Gimli wanted him, hearing it in his own voice, gruff with frustration and love, was a surprisingly satisfying substitute. “I used to imagine such bawdy things between us,” he murmured. It was barely a whisper, and he wasn't sure if it had been intended for Gimli's ears, or merely a confession to the night.

The dwarf's body shook in silent laughter. “If I had only known, my dear,” he said with a smile. “How differently our nights might have been spent.”

“You too, then?” asked Legolas, leaning up to look into Gimli's dark eyes. 

Those eyes caught and held him, burning even now, in the darkness of night. “The games I imagined may not be fit for elven ears,” he admitted. He reached up to run a finger down the inside curve of Legolas's ear.

Legolas shuddered. It wasn't lust he felt right then, not exactly, but something akin to it. He gathered Gimli close against his chest, marveling in the heat of skin against skin. It was not something he had known before that night. Not a detail he had considered in any of his fantasies. 

And then Gimli's hands were on his back, his mouth damp and hot against his neck. And though Legolas had thought not to, and though Gimli had already admitted he lacked the strength, the two strained against one another, their mouths and hands a symphony of taste and touch. 

Legolas hadn't known about this, any of it, really. He'd known nothing about how love could transform base desires into to something pure. He hadn't realized that physical perfection mattered not at all, that his cherished memories of Gimli at his prime detracted nothing from loving Gimli as he was now. He plunged his fingers into the splendid silver mane of his hair, twisting it around his hand – not gently, but not as roughly as he once might have – and Gimli arched into him. Pressing. Grinding. Driving Legolas to the brink of his control.

It did not last as long as either would have liked. Gimli's ragged breath became painful coughing, in an instant changing Legolas's need into alarm. He propped his friend in his arms and reached for a skein of water among his things. “Drink,” he urged.

The dwarf swallowed gratefully, his fingers fumbling in a pocket and drawing out another phial of medicine. For once Legolas didn't mind the concoction and what it stood for. He pulled it from his friend's shaking hands and yanked the cork with his teeth. Gimli's hands wrapped around the elf's, guiding the bottle to his lips. Then he gulped, closing his eyes and grimacing. 

Long seconds passed. Legolas was scared. 

“I suppose these are the games of the young,” Gimli said at last. His voice was weak. His skin pale. 

“I am sorry,” Legolas said earnestly. “I should not have – ”

Gimli smiled a wan smile. “Oh yes, you should,” he countered. “We would not have known,” he continued, “unless we were to try.”

For a long time they lay still, entwined and close, while the ship gently rocked in the river's current. Legolas watched the moon make her slow march across the sky, all the while listening to Gimli's breathing grow easier, his heartbeat less strained.

“Sing for me,” the dwarf said, his voice half sleeping.

Legolas sang. Later he would remember nothing of the words, but the melodies he twisted about them that night stayed with him forever.  


“This is what it'll be like, then,” Gimli said drowsily. “When you are off on this ship, singing to the stars.”

Legolas could not miss his meaning. A sharp stab of panic cut through his chest. “You are coming with me,” he said quietly. “You must know that.”

Gimli didn't answer, and for a time Legolas contained his feelings, imagining that his friend's slip – because that's what it must have been – was an effect of the confusion of falling asleep. But when Gimli pulled slightly out of his embrace, propping himself on one elbow to look Legolas in the eye, his heart sank.

“I am dying.” It was the first time Gimli had said the words aloud, and his voice was so calm and steady that Legolas flinched. But Gimli did not waver. “I would not survive such a journey.”

Legolas opened his mouth to protest, but the dwarf was prepared, his finger already reaching to touch the elf's lips, silencing him before he could begin. “And even if I could,” he added firmly, “I would not go.”

Legolas pulled away, putting inches between them. It couldn't have startled or hurt him more if his friend had suddenly swung his axe at him. Tears stung in his eyes and his chest tightened painfully. “You cannot mean it,” he whispered.

Gimli reached for him, cupping his face in his large palm. “I love you, Legolas,” he said simply. “Of all the souls in Middle Earth and beyond, for me there is only you. But this land, these stones and mountains, they are my home. They hold me as surely as your Valinor holds you. I will die – here or there, it will happen – and I cannot be laid to rest apart from my home, apart from my people.”

There wasn't anything Legolas could say. He understood. Even as his heart was breaking, he realized that a part of him had known all along. Gimli _was_ the stone of the mountains. He was mineral and ore and rough-cut gems. He was made of the land itself. To take him away would be a cruelty. A sob choked him, but he wouldn't look away. He wouldn't hide this pain.

“I have only just gotten you,” he said helplessly. Tears spilled down his cheeks.

Gimli smiled sadly and engulfed him in his arms. “You foolish elf,” he said, his voice gruff and sweet against his hair. “You've had me all along.”

***  
“It is time to return to Aglarond,” Mâglah said quietly. It was early morning, and the air had enough of a chill that Legolas saw her breath for an instant as she spoke. They were now at the far end of summer, and the ship was finished, all but for a few minor details.

She was seaworthy. She was lovely and strong and ready to sail across the sea and farther. Legolas was fortunate to have such a craft, to have such help as he had found in Gimli and Mâglah. But he had been stalling, fidgeting with details and dragging his feet, sure that the moment he declared her complete, Gimli would try to spare him the pain of his death and send him away that instant.

“I fear you are right,” he agreed. The weather had been rainy: grim and grey for two days and chilly through the nights. Gimli had developed a cough, and though he insisted it was nothing to bother about, he had been up coughing for much of the night. He finally slept after dawn, but Legolas understood what the dwarf girl would not say. 

Gimli should die in his home, with his family.

They packed up the camp as briskly as possible, using Gimli's pony to carry the bulk of it. Gimli would ride with Legolas. The elf wasn't sure he was strong enough to ride alone, and even if he were, he wanted to be near to his love for as long as they had left.

The old dwarf didn't protest any of the arrangements, even allowing Legolas wear his axe on his back. When the time came, Gimli sat in front of the elf, his long hair twisted and tucked between them as Legolas gathered him close and took up the reins.

The ride back through Rohan was slow. They camped twice, and though the weather was better, Gimli slept close to the fire, warmed further by Legolas's body. Mâglah gave them space, but the illusion of privacy they'd had near the boat was gone. Legolas found he didn't care if the girl was scandalized by his relationship with her uncle, and to her credit, she never seemed to be.

About a half mile from the gates to the Glittering Caves, they were met by a party of Aglarond dwarves. It took barely a glance for them to realize the facts of their Lord's condition, and a rider went ahead to notify Gimli's family. In the city, they were greeted by Gimli's family – a host of nephews, a few nieces, and Mâzgal, Gimli's youngest and only surviving sister.

Mâglah threw herself from her pony and into her mother's arms, reminding Legolas that she was, after all, still barely more than a child. The dwarf woman petted her daughter's hair, but her eyes sought Gimli over the girl's head. 

“Hello, sister,” Gimli said weakly from his perch on the horse.

Mâzgal's lips tightened in concern before she smiled. “Welcome home, Gimli,” she said in Westron. Her eyes, bright with unshed tears, skipped up to Legolas's face and her smile included him, too. “Master Legolas,” she said softly, for though they had met only once, long ago, she was no stranger. She seemed not unaware of her brother's feelings for him. “Thank you for returning my family to me.”

***  
Gimli left the world peacefully, four days later. 

True to his word that long ago evening by the river, Legolas stayed by his side. He made himself at home in a chair next to Gimli's bed and kept busy fluffing pillows and dulling pain with medicine. He craved neither sleep nor food while he kept his vigil, and in their rare moments of solitude, he lay close to his friend, holding him as they whispered about all that had passed between them and what was yet to come.

During one such interlude, the dwarf's fingers combed through Legolas's hair. Gimli seemed lost in thought, so Legolas thought the caress an idle one, but then his friend spoke. “May I have a lock of your hair?” he asked, his voice humble.

Legolas was startled. “Mine?” His eyes darted to the crystal box on the shelf. His hair was nothing – homely – when next to the gold of Galadriel's.

Gimli let the long locks slide through his fingers like silk. “I would have something of you,” he explained so softly he was barely speaking. “I would have something to take to the stone with me.”

It was a significant gesture for an elf to cut his hair, one that was never undertaken lightly, but Legolas did not hesitate. It took only moments for him to plait a narrow braid into his hair. His fingers trembled as he reached for his knife; it felt like a vow, this gift for Gimli. The sharp blade cut through the plait easily.

His hair wrapped twice around Gimli's wrist, and Legolas bound it with a silver bead. He leaned to kiss the smooth skin beneath the token, his lips relishing the pulse of life in his lover's veins.

More often they weren't alone, and Legolas had to share Gimli with his family. It was humbling to witness the outpouring of love between Gimli and his kin. The elf was reminded of those long-ago days when they traveled with the hobbits, such was the obvious nature of their love. Mâzgal came the most frequently, speaking in low tones in their own language. Legolas often lost time during those long visits, recalling neither the conversations nor his own drifting thoughts.

When Mâglah visited, she came straight from the forges, her hair pulled back and her brow sweaty and streaked with grime. She whispered to Gimli in Khuzdul, and once showed her uncle a handful of something – beads? – cupped in one soot-blackened palm. They seemed to meet his approval; he nodded and smiled wistfully, his eyes flicking over to where Legolas sat in the corner.

Legolas didn't mind becoming invisible for these visits. No one asked him to leave the room – the blessing of Mâzgal, he did not doubt – so he just observed quietly as Gimli's kindred came and went, respect and love gleaming from every face.

They were alone when Gimli breathed his last. Legolas knew he should call someone in, Mâzgal at least, or her intrepid daughter, but found he could not bear to miss even the seconds it would take to summon someone from the doorway.

“Legolas,” Gimli had called weakly. His voice was garbled, full of gravel and water.

The elf took his friend's hand, leaning over the bed. “I am here.”

“Lie with me?”

Legolas climbed onto the bed, careful not to jostle, and gathered his love into his arms. He weighed so little now. Legolas wondered that such a change could come so quickly. He kissed Gimli's temple, smoothing the hair from his face. 

“It is time,” the dwarf told him.

Fear made Legolas quake, until Gimli reached a hand to his face. He did not speak, but made soothing noises, as though the elf were a tiny child. There was no fear in his eyes. No regret. He looked long at Legolas, deep and satisfied. 

“It has been a good life,” Legolas whispered.

Gimli nodded. 

“And we will meet again.” He wasn't sure he believed it, but he knew that Gimli did, and he needed some hope to cling to or he would shatter.

“When the world is remade,” Gimli promised. “For love is undying.” His lips brushed Legolas's skin, and the elf shattered just the same.

For a long time after Gimli was still, Legolas lay there, his arms wrapped gingerly about the dwarf who had been so much to him. The vast eternity of his life seemed at once to be over and yet too long to bear. His century with Gimli had been but a moment, but he knew it defined everything he would ever be again. He finally understood Arwen's choice. It would be better to die and have hope of meeting in the afterlife than to linger as he knew he must. Perhaps only to fade and vanish, but never again to hear the voice of his beloved.

When Mâglah arrived later, she found him curled around Gimli's body, somehow crying still, though it felt as though every drop inside of him had been spent. 

***  
Gimli's funeral was vastly different from Aragorn's. Legolas himself looked much the same – the same finery, the same braids of mourning plaited into his thick hair, the same tearless solemnity in his eyes – but he felt as different as it was possible to feel, laying to rest this second friend in such a short time. His friend and his heart.

The dwarves of the Glittering Caves were not the still, silent masses that had observed King Elessar's procession. From very early that morning, the whole city sang. The songs were rich and heavy, full of gruff Khuzdul consonants and low notes that made the whole mountain thrum. The songs at first seemed distinct, but somehow they built upon one another into harmonious choruses of deep earthen voices. They were not akin to the bittersweet laments of the elves, but rather, deep, sorrowing melodies that moved the very core of him.

There were no flowers tossed as Gimli's stout nephews carried his bier through the deep paths of the city. Instead, it seemed that the air shimmered with gold dust. Legolas noticed no one scattering it, but somehow a fine mist of the metallic powder settled over them all, until hair glittered and skin glowed in the shafts of brilliant sunlight that came through passages cut sharply through the mountain.

Gimli himself was resplendent. He was dressed in the finest garments Legolas had ever seen, his most beloved axe resting on the bier beside him. The golden dust made him look as he might in a dream, and Legolas longed for it be just that, that he might soon wake and find Gimli sleeping nearby, young and strong and decades away from all of this.

He noticed Mâglah a short distance away. Her face was proud and her eyes dry, but there was a heaviness to her shoulders that he had never seen before, even when she was burdened with both Gimli's work and his care at the shipyard. She was so very young. Legolas wondered how she managed to look so strong, when he could not pull himself together enough to keep from trembling. 

She had been the one to dress Gimli, to prepare him for his tomb. Legolas had been sleeping or drifting when she came – he had no memory of Gimli's body being cleaned and dressed, only of the girl combing and plaiting his beautiful hair into a heavy, unfamiliar style. 

“Why do you change his braids?” he'd asked her. He remembered Gimli refusing to explain the meaning behind his plaits.

She studied him for a long moment, considering whether or not to answer. He supposed she decided to trust him, because she spoke. “Lord Gimli has ever worn his hair like a hopeful lover,” she explained softly as her fingers worked the intricate twists. “The braid I give him now is one that better suits his station. He will rest looking at last like the Lord of Aglarond.”

“A hopeful lover?” Legolas asked.

The girl made a noise of assent. “It is meant as temporary style, changed soon into betrothal braids or, if the dwarf is unsuccessful in courtship, into plaits that signify a lack of interest in matters of the heart.” She cast him a sidelong glance. “My uncle was deemed eccentric for his lifelong hope.”

Legolas sifted through his memory, trying to remember the day that his friend had changed his hair. It was after the war, near the time of Aragorn's wedding. But try as he might, he could not recall the specific day. He could not remember if Gimli had given any sign, any hint at all, that those plaits were meant for him. So many years wasted, and all because he had been utterly blind.

And now, as the funeral procession ended its march, Legolas realized that Mâglah had been right to change Gimli's hair. He looked like a lord. Nay, he looked like he could be the King under the Mountain himself, though Legolas knew enough about dwarves to know that it would be a mistake to say so. It made Legolas proud to know that, of all the attentions a handsome dwarf like Gimli surely had received, he was the one that his friend had loved. 

They positioned the bier inside a small chamber. It must have been carved from the mountain years before, for it was the most intricate and beautiful room Legolas had ever seen. The walls were carved and painted with pictographs – stories of Gimli's life, Legolas realized. The most prominent was the founding of Aglarond, but the elf quickly recognized dozens of other achievements, like his part in the rebuilding of Erebor and the forging of the Gates of Minas Tirith. Also, in a long series of images carved into the ceiling, there was the story of the Fellowship. 

Legolas recognized Mâglah's artistry – perhaps not as designer, but certainly as a craftsman who worked on the tomb. She had carved the elf in the same manner as she had on his ship, tall and willowy next to Gimli's stout figure. In this image, their hands were clasped in friendship and love.

For a long time he gazed up at carving – the nine of them immortalized together forever on the ceiling of that tomb. Boromir, Merry, Pippin, and Aragorn were all dead. Mithrandir had taken Frodo into the west, and Samwise had followed, as he always did. And now Gimli was gone too, leaving only Legolas, heartbroken and alone, the undying last of the Nine. The last of the Three Hunters. The last of the elves.

Even among the crowd of Gimli's kin – or especially among them – he felt small and strange and lonely. Never before had he been beneath a mountain without Gimli close beside him. Never had he been so very alone in the world. He had turned to Aragorn and Gimli when his people left Middle Earth. And it was Gimli he clung to after they buried Aragorn. 

He did not bother to search the faces nearby for comfort. There was none to be had. These dwarves had been kind to him, but only because their kindness honored Gimli. Not because he was Legolas. Not because there was any care for him. 

He was pulled from his thoughts by movement around him. One by one, dwarves were approaching the bier and leaving some token on the stone next to Gimli. Luxurious fabrics, gems, baubles wrought of precious metals – each gift was more splendid than the last. It was then, among the growing dragon's hoard of tokens, that Legolas noticed his own – the plaited bracelet he had made only days before. It looked drab and out of place on Gimli's kingly wrist.

 _I would have something to take to the stone_ , Gimli had said.

There was probably some traditional organization of the placing of gifts. Chances were, no one had considered Legolas, assuming that an elf would have nothing crafted to give. It was true that his hands knew not how to make beautiful things. It was true that he had not thought to bring gold or rubies or even flowers to lay within Gimli's tomb. But he looked at that bracelet – it was the token of young love, of something romantic and fleeting. There was no hint of stone, of permanence, in those plaited locks.

He stepped forward without fully intending to. He pushed easily past startled dwarves, nudging even Mâzgal out of his way as he strode to Gimli's side. His hands moved up to his own hair, gathering the loose strands and the smaller braids together and twining the mass of it deftly in his fingers until it formed one thick, tight plait.

He drew his knife from his boot, ignoring the horrified gasps of the nearest dwarves who almost certainly misread his actions. In one swift motion, he yanked the sharp blade through his hair at the base of the braid, cutting the long plait free.

He dropped to one knee before Gimli's bier. “ _Ci velethron e-guil nîn_ ,” he whispered. He tucked the rope of his own hair beneath Gimli's folded hands and brushed his mouth across his lips for one last kiss. Gimli was as cold as marble. “Be at peace, my dearest friend.”

When he stood, his head felt strangely light, and cool air ruffled the newly-shorn hair that fell around his face. The shocked and horrified faces around him told him that he had gone too far, but Legolas cared so little about what anyone thought of him now. Only Mâglah's face, eyes full and cheeks streaked with tears, made any impression at all. 

Through her tears, she smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sindarin translaltion:
> 
> Ci velethron e-guil nîn.  
> *You are the love of my life.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even though it was Gimli's dearest wish, Legolas cannot bring himself to leave Middle Earth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you!! Thanks to everyone who has left comments and/or kudos, and thanks to everyone who reads, whether they left feedback or not. I hope you all have enjoyed (if that's a word that can be used for a story like this) my foray into the heart of Legolas. I really enjoyed writing it. <3 <3 <3

Legolas first spotted the figure some three miles out, trudging along on foot and leading a diligent pony behind. About a mile closer, he saw that it was a dwarf. And then he realized that it was not a stranger.

The elf's heart lurched. It could not be. It was impossible.

But that walk. Legolas knew it so well that he would recognize the sound of each footfall, had the dwarf been closer. And the irritated way a stray lock of hair was shoved away, the way the figure yanked his hood more closely against the cold wind. Legolas knew those movements.

“Gimli,” Legolas whispered, and the name felt right on his lips, even after so much time. He wanted to run to meet him. He wanted to call out. But he managed neither. Something kept him rooted in place, some rational place in his mind that told him that it could not be, that wishing never made such things real.

And, of course, it was not Gimli. When he realized his mistake, the disappointment was not as crushing as it would have once been. It was the rush of hope that was unfamiliar now; the darkness of its loss had become a constant companion. The dwarf lowered her hood, and he noted once again, as he had long ago, their resemblance; it would be foolish to be surprised by it now. The fact that she had come to him at all, however, was surprising.

“Mâglah,” he said when she was finally close enough to hear. 

She stopped and studied him for a long moment, her face betraying nothing – her emotions nor her purpose in seeking him out. He remembered that she had always been thus, keeping secrets like the best of her kind. “You are much altered, Master Elf,” she told him at last.

It was true. They had not spoken or seen one another since the awful day of Gimli's funeral, and Legolas had only vaguest idea of how much time had passed since then. There had been changes of season – he remembered a particularly wet spring, as well as many autumns when the color of the leaves made his heart pull up tightly into his throat.

Mâglah, too, had changed. She was no longer a girl but a dwarf-woman grown, stocky and strong like the rest of her race. Her hair had darkened and her face now showed the barest traces of laughter and sorrows. More dramatically, her midsection poked through her cloak in obvious evidence of pregnancy.

“You are going to have a baby,” Legolas said witlessly. 

Her lips curved into a tiny smile. “Indeed. It seems that all I have heard of the perception of elves must be true.”

For a moment Legolas was taken aback, but then he realized with a start. She was teasing him. Just as Gimli had so often, she used jest to try to cheer him. And he smiled in spite of himself. “Well met,” he said, the unfamiliar sound of laughter not far from his voice. “And does your husband not mind your traveling so far, alone?”

Her eyes sparkled. “My husband has learned that it does him no good to question my decisions,” she told him pertly, and he suddenly remembered that she was meant to be Gimli's heir. He wondered if he were speaking with the Lord of Aglarond herself. 

She looked toward the river, where the delta broadened to the sea. “I would see your ship again, if I may.” Mâglah said. “Is she here still?”

Legolas's curiosity about her visit was tempered enough that he knew he could wait until the dwarf was ready to reveal her purpose. So he led her down the rocky path toward the sea, reaching for her hands to guide her over rougher patches. Mâglah the girl would not have accepted his help, but perhaps in deference to her unborn child, she grasped his outstretched hands.

When she saw the ship, her breath caught in her throat. Legolas understood. She was incredible – the product of the greatest collaboration of elf and dwarf since Celebrimbor and Narvi. The years that might have weathered her had only brought her dignity – the wood strakes that made up her glorious hull had faded to a soft grey, and Mâglah's intricate carvings, oiled and carefully preserved, were even more beautiful than the sketches that had long-ago taken Legolas's breath away.

Mâglah sat on a rocky outcropping, gazing at the ship. “I sometimes dream of this boat,” she said quietly. “That was the best summer of my life. I was away from my parents for the first time. I got to help craft this amazing ship. I finally came to know my uncle – really know him – for the first time.” She glanced up at Legolas, who stood a few paces behind her. “I even got to meet Legolas of Ithilien,” she told him, smiling. “How few dwarves my age could boast of knowing an elf!”

“You were a great help to Gimli. And also to me.” Legolas looked out at the ship, feeling his gaze soften at the sight of her. “She would not be half as lovely without your work,” he told her. How he loved the curve of his ship's hull, the glimmer of steel against the wood. She was the only thing in the world that brought him any joy, though time was that he could not bear to set eyes on her. During those years he wandered, creeping old, familiar paths he'd once walked with Gimli. He lived in memory even while he tried to forget, and slowly, he began to fade.

But he too, had dreamed of that ship. He had lingered longest in Lórien, losing time completely as he walked the paths where he had first come to feel love. It was there, in his half-sleep, he remembered their glorious creation.

So he made a small craft and paddled the Anduin – another path he and Gimli once took together. He wound down its length to the Delta and rediscovered the boat that Gimli insisted he build. Insisted they build. And for the first time since last hearing the dwarf's gruff old voice, Legolas felt the fierce swell of love. She was tired and too soon old, for lack of a caretaker. From then, Legolas's purpose was singular – to make her beautiful once more.

“In truth, I would not be here at all, had it not been for this ship. For the work you and Gimli put into her.” His confession was soft, and Mâglah didn't look at him or make any sign that she had heard, but he was certain that she had. 

“I heard rumors that you had not sailed, and I worried.” she told him after a time. “I worried that it had all been for naught.”

Hadn't it been? Legolas was still there, his feet planted firmly on the rocky soil of Middle Earth. “I was traveling,” he told Mâglah. 

She stood up and looked at him. “You need not be so flippant,” she told him, her eyes growing hard. “Have you any idea how long it has been?”

In truth, he did not. Years, certainly. Possibly a decade? His hair had grown back – it was as long and thick as ever it had been, though it no longer gleamed. “I know not,” he said softly, placating. He did not want Mâglah to become angry.

“When I heard it said that a lone elf once more walked the plains of Ithilien, I knew it must be you. Some claimed that your people had returned to Middle Earth. More discredited the news entirely, insisting that elves were nothing but a fairy story from long ago, but I knew it was you.” She shook her head. “I came to bring you a gift,” she said abruptly.

“A gift?” Legolas could think of no reason why this plucky little dwarf would wish to give him anything.

“From my uncle,” she said, her voice softening.

Legolas's heart constricted. “How is that possible?” he asked, his voice all but lost.

She pulled a small velvet pouch from her cloak. “They were made by my hand,” she prefaced before handing him the bag, “as soon as we returned to Aglarond. But I made them at Lord Gimli's bidding, using his own designs.”

Legolas poured the contents of the bag into his palm. Beads. They were crafted from volcanic glass – heavy, dark, and vaguely translucent. Each bead was etched with intricate dwarven designs. They were gorgeous, but Legolas did not understand. He looked up at Mâglah, a question in his eyes.

“They are mourning beads,” she told him. “Yours are obsidian, though they are more commonly made of onyx or jet. My uncle would have only the best for you.”

“I am to wear them?” Legolas asked.

She nodded. “In your hair. A dwarf never remarries, even after his or her spouse has gone to the stone. The beads signify a bond never broken, a promise to stay true to death and beyond.” She gestured toward the inky beads. “There is one for every ten years married.”

One dozen beads. Gimli had counted from the very beginning. The beads trembled in his hands. “We were never wed,” he whispered. 

She looked at him for a long spell, and Legolas was startled by how very grown up her gaze had become. “Does it matter so much that the words were not said?” she asked softly. “Does it change anything at all?”

“So I,” he said after a considering pause, unable to keep the awe from his voice. “So I may wear these? I have that right?”

Mâglah smiled, her face all sunshine and warmth. “May I?” she asked, motioning toward his hair.

Legolas pulled out his father's comb and sat, cross-legged on the ground. Mâglah knelt behind him, close enough that he imagined he might feel it, should her baby kick. It felt odd to be so close to someone, to have her fingers in the hair only he had touched for so long. Odd, but comforting.

“I am glad I did not give them to you right away,” she said as she plaited. “They would have been wasted when you cut your hair.”

But he would not have. If such a precious gift had been woven into his hair that day, he would have found something else to leave as his token. He reached up to roll a bead between his finger and thumb. No, he would not part with these for anything.

It did not take long for her work to be done. It was a single braid, heavy and intricate, made up of dozens of smaller locks of hair, the beads woven up within. It felt wonderful. Exotic. “Show me the pattern,” he urged, afraid he might never replicate it. She explained, touching his own fingertips to each part of the weave as she did.

“There is another gift,” she told him later, in the inevitable awkwardness that followed the intimacy of hair braiding. He looked at her, surprised. “This one is from me,” she told him.

She went back to her pony to fetch the bundle. It was cumbersome and large, and the elf hurried to take it from her. “What is it?” Legolas asked, perplexed that Mâglah would bring him anything.

A sail. 

It was the one part of his ship that hadn't survived his initial neglect. By the time Legolas had returned to her, the sail had been moth-eaten and tattered, the beautiful cream linen brittle and yellow.

“I thought you might need a new one.” She told him. “As linen does not last.”

They spread the sail over the grass, so that Legolas might see the design. It was a square sail, like the original, but rather than being a plain expanse of white linen, Mâglah's bore a coat of arms – a crest he had never seen and yet instantly recognized. The background image was a pale green leaf, the foreground an orange-red flame. Tiny star-shaped sparks blossomed from the flame – nine in all. It was his name and Gimli's, bound together as the sigil of their house, had they one.

Tears pricked Legolas's eyes. It hurt to look upon, like a fantasy touched but not grasped. “Why?” he asked, barely able to keep the feeling from his voice. “I deserve nothing so grand.”

“I found the design in my uncle's books,” she told him. “I believe he would have had it inked into his skin, had there been time.” 

She reached out, taking Legolas's hands in her own. “When I was a child, my lord Gimli spoke of you often. He told me that you would sail away from here one day. He said that your Undying Lands would heal a fading elf and restore to him his vigor and health.” She squeezed his fingers in hands that still looked girlish. “Forgive me for speaking it, Master Legolas, but you need this restoration. You are barely a shadow now.”

The elf made a strangled sound. Tears slipped from his eyes. He had not cried in so long – and suddenly he needed to know exactly how long it had been. “How many years have gone by?” he asked.

Mâglah looked uneasy, dropped his hands. “My lord uncle was buried sixty years ago this past September,” she whispered, no longer meeting his eye. 

So much time. Legolas remembered but little of it.

“It always seemed to bring him peace,” Mâglah was saying, “knowing that you would go on after he was gone.”

“Peace?” Legolas choked.

“I can see that there is no peace for you in Middle Earth.”

“Nor anywhere, without Gimli,” he said bitterly.

She met his eye again, her jaw set and her glance again full of mettle and steel. “If my uncle had believed that, he would have rallied against Mahal himself just to stay by your side.”

And doubtless he would have succeeded. Legolas felt his own heart turning, as though he himself were under his love's less-than-gentle persuasion. 

“Sail,” Mâglah urged, the steel melting into softness all at once. “And it will be said through the ages that Lord Gimli sailed, too. His body may be within the stone that bore him, but his heart ever goes with you.” 

***  
Legolas endured three days after the storm before landfall. He noticed the birds first, gulls like the one that stole his ease so long ago. Their calls awakened a deep longing inside him, and he realized it had never been the sea he craved, but that which lay across it – now so close.

He wrapped his hands around the ship's stem and leaned out. Wind lifted his heavy hair and misted him with salty spray. The hull split the water beneath, cutting white foam from the choppy grey sea. Gimli would have loved it, once he got over the fear of the water. For a moment he allowed himself to imagine his face – that mixture of trepidation and joy, the sea mist collecting in that great beard of his.

Just the passing thought of his love darkened his spirits, but it seemed not to bring him as low as usual. The sun was dazzling and the birds cried cheerfully, and though his heart was ever just an aching hollow in his chest, he was unable to hold so fiercely to his gloom.

The sea changed color next – its steely green-grey evolving slowly toward bluer tones. More and more it mirrored the sky, reflecting aquamarine and turquoise. Then Legolas smelled something earthy and rich beneath the endless salt and fish of the ocean. It took him back to the tangle of his childhood forest, of dark, damp soil and of rotting vegetation. Land was near. Land with trees.

The sight of land came soon after – at first a dark smudge, but quickly growing green and defined. Mâglah's beautiful sail – repaired with careful stitches after being rent by the storm – was full, the sea swift beneath his ship, and the closer he came to that tree-lined beach, the lighter he felt. Perhaps the legends were true – perhaps the land of his ancestors really was healing his hurts.

But there was one wound that went far too deep to ever truly heal. Legolas reflexively smoothed his hand over his hair, his fingers lingering on the beads in his plait. Mâglah had said that Gimli's heart sailed with him, but the inverse was also true. His own heart was lost beneath Aglarond, golden and still in that glorious tomb. 

***  
A figure waited on the pebbled beach, willowy and graceful, unmistakably elven. He paced as he watched the ship come closer, his movements smooth and fluid, even in his impatience. Legolas knew him at once, and he felt like a child again, waking from a bitter dream.

“ _Ada_ ,” he breathed, and the pain of the last sixty years consumed him. He was insensible of the tears that dampened his face, of his scramble over the side of his beloved ship, of the cold shock of water that engulfed him.

Thranduil came straight into the sea, the surf rolling over his knees and thighs. The foam soaked his tunic and darkened the ends of his hair. He took large, awkward steps toward his son. Never before had Legolas seen him so undignified.

“Legolas.” His voice was rough. Disbelieving. “ _Ionneg._ ”

And Legolas moved, pushing through the hip-deep water, one hand twisted in his ship's mooring line and the other reaching out toward his father. “ _Ada!_ ” he said again, a sob shattering his voice.

The older elf reached him at last, catching him in his arms just as Legolas stumbled against the strength of the surf. “Legolas,” Thranduil said again, a hitch in his voice. “It has been long since I had real hope for this day. I feared you faded.” His father held him close in his arms, and Legolas lost himself in the strength and warmth of him, in the comforting sound of the Sindarin on his lips. 

“Very nearly,” Legolas confessed, his voice muffled against Thranduil's shoulder.

His father's hands moved to either side of his face, pulling back enough so that he might study his son. His eyes took him in like a starving man beholding a feast. His fingers touched his face, his hair, lingering over his bead-strewn plait. A look of anguish crossed his features as he clearly recognized the dwarvish weave. “Glóin's son?” he asked, his breath ragged.

“Gimli,” Legolas whispered, the name breaking as surf against rocks. “My love lies in a tomb beneath a mountain across the sea.” He glanced over his shoulder at the vast expanse of water. Never had he been so very far from his friend; the whole world lay between them. “I come to you half-alive and heartless, my father.” The words choked him and he curled his hands into his father's tunic, burying his face in golden hair.

“No, my boy,” Thranduil soothed softly, cupping his son's head and smoothing his hair with his fingers. “You may be heartsore, even heartbroken, but you, my child, could never be without.” Waves crashed around them, soaking them even further, but drenched as they were, they made no move toward shore.

“How can you know?” Even to his own ears, his voice sounded very young, almost petulant against his father's chest.

Thranduil pulled his son as close as he could, and Legolas felt his father's body absorb his trembling, a hint of his warmth seeping into Legolas's cold core. “You weep,” Thranduil said softly, his voice heavy with emotion. “Such pain proves your love, which proves your heart, my son.”

“Then I wish I had none, for I cannot live thusly, father.”

Thranduil made a distressed sound, and Legolas felt the heated dampness of tears on the top of his head. He had never, in all the long years of his life, known his father to cry. “On these shores, love is healing,” the older elf said at last. “You will never forget; you will never cease to love, but I promise you,” and his voice shook and his arms tightened and Legolas found himself believing, “you will heal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sindarin Translations:
> 
> Ada  
> *Father  
> Ionneg  
> *my son


End file.
